


Rigor Mortis

by LadyOfTheOldWorld



Series: Like Walking on Broken Glass [2]
Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe, Blood and Gore, Brief Minor Gore, Canonical Character Death, Character Death, Death, Gen, I Tried, I did a lot of research for half of this, M/M, Not Beta Read, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Someone please smack me if this is wrong at all, Trans Character, Trans Female Character, Trans Male Character, Trans Tatara (Tokyo Ghoul), Trans Yoshimura Eto | Takatsuki Sen, We Die Like Men, unsafe binding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-10-02 00:41:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17254403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyOfTheOldWorld/pseuds/LadyOfTheOldWorld
Summary: Nothing ever lasts, happiness least of all.





	Rigor Mortis

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mercyandmagic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mercyandmagic/gifts).



> Once again, a gift for the lovely mercyandmagic, and all the warnings you need are in the tags.
> 
> To reiterate, however:
> 
> SOMEONE PLEASE SMACK ME IF I FUCKED UP IN ANY WAY, SHAPE, OR FORM IN MY RESEARCH.
> 
> ALSO, DO NOT SLEEP IN YOUR BINDERS, KIDDOS. TATARA KNOWS BETTER, HE'S JUST DEALING WITH A LOT AT THAT POINT.
> 
> (Side note: Suppressants and scent blockers are available, but I'll probably work that into a more Eto-centric part of the series.)

Happiness never lasted forever.

Not that any of them could have predicted what would happen, of course. Not that any of them could possibly have dreamed that that Christmas would be their last happy one for quite some time. Not even Tatara’s paranoia could have fathomed what was to come. January, February, March, and even April passed quietly and relatively normally. The Chinese New Year fell on the fourteenth of February that year, and despite having already been in Japan for three years by that point, it shouldn’t have been a surprise that he quietly continued to observe it. Of course, given the situation he was currently in – living with Noro and Eto on the former’s teaching salary – the little things were the easiest to respect. Not leaving the house on the third day, making the closest thing possible to a traditional dinner for the three of them on New Year’s Eve, and then again on the eighth day to honor the eve of the birth of the Jade Emperor. He also nearly lived in a red sweatshirt at home (new enough), and hung an oval-shaped red lantern beside their front door.

The Lantern Festival – _Yuánxiāo Jié_ – fell on the first of March that year. Honestly, Tatara was glad he had to deal with school. It meant that he could only think of the day, and of his siblings’ favorite legends concerning it, in small snippets. Yan’s favorite legend had been the one associating the Lantern Festival with an ancient warrior named Lan Moon, who led a rebellion against the tyrannical king of ancient China. He was killed in the storming of the city, and the successful rebels commemorated the festival in his name. Fei’s favorite legend stated that the Jade Emperor had chosen that day to burn down the village where the people who had hunted his favorite crane lived. A wise man from another village suggested every family should hang red lanterns around their houses, set up bonfires in the streets, and explode firecrackers on the fifteenth lunar day. This would give the village the appearance of being on fire to the Jade Emperor. The ruse worked, and from that day on, people celebrated the anniversary by carrying lanterns in the streets and exploding fireworks.

As for Tatara, he had never given much thought to the legends related to the day. During his youngest years, he’d always been too busy running after his siblings, doing his best to stay out of his mother’s grasp. In later years, before Chi She Lian had been exterminated, he’d spent his time doing small jobs for his siblings. (Usually the ones that weren’t too dangerous, but that either of them happened to be too busy to attend to themselves.) In the past three, however, he’d done his best to consciously _not_ think of it at all outside of the general cultural significance it held. It was just easier that way, he’d found. The pain was still fresh even now, so pushing the feelings associated with it away were just what he had to do to be able to function. Getting bent out of shape about it just wasn’t an option, especially not when he was doing everything possible to be seen as anything but the stereotypically weak/fragile omega. After all, if people couldn’t see his presentation, then they were quicker to believe he was male.

Unexpectedly, Houji had invited him on a date that night. Even in China the day hadn’t symbolized love in literal centuries, but it was a nice gesture, one Tatara "rewarded" his boyfriend for by letting him hold his hand in public. March sixteenth was when the Blue Dragon Festival – _Zhonghe Festival_ – fell; he spent it almost obsessively cleaning the apartment and doing chores, when he wasn’t dealing with school, homework, or Eto’s near-constant shenanigans. Tomb Sweeping day – _Qingming Festival_ – would have fallen on the eighteenth of May. Given that his siblings wouldn’t have had graves to visit even if he had still been in China, he couldn’t have gone to clean the site or to pray even if he had had the time. Still, he would have attempted to make a few _qingtuan_ (green dumplings made with glutinous rice mixed with barley grass, and filled with sweet red bean paste), and then burned incense for his siblings.

His world ground violently to a halt once more long before then.

* * *

The fourth of May dawned cold and rainy. Taking just about every science course available (how was he supposed to choose between biology, chemistry, or physics?) at the college he ended up attending made sense given his affinity for them. Doing so with the end goal of teaching them, however, had been _entirely_ Houji’s idea. Tatara wasn’t exactly thrilled with the prospect, but had to admit it would provide a constant challenge, something his mind tended to crave along with near-constant stimulation in one form or another. With a late December birthday, Eto had started second grade a month ago in April, but since Noro taught high school Tatara had to drop her off in the morning and then pick her up in the afternoon. It usually worked out that he had just enough time to pick her up and then drop her off with Noro between two of his afternoon classes. Even on that cold and rainy day, everything had seemed perfectly normal.

Everything _was_ perfectly normal, until it suddenly wasn’t. Tatara had been in the middle of class, when his phone had started vibrating in his pocket. A single vibration meant a text message, while continuous vibrations meant an incoming call. Very carefully checking it to see who was calling him, seeing Noro’s name made something cold and uncomfortable settle in his chest. Pocketing his phone again, he requested to be excused under the pretext of needing to use the bathroom. Once safely out in the hall, he pulled out his phone to find that Noro had left him a message. The cold feeling in his chest increased, and then became a full-blown panic, when he started listening to the message. The call had come from Noro’s phone, but he hadn’t been the one to make it. Smarter than most her age, it had been Eto to make the call, and it was clear that she was in some _serious_ trouble. Hyperventilating, he rushed back into the classroom to grab his things, citing a family emergency as he ran from the lecture hall again.

As luck would have it, the skies opened up and rain started pouring almost as soon as he exited the building. Cursing loudly, Tatara ducked back inside just long enough to hurriedly text Eto – _Don’t move, I’ll be there soon_ – and then shove his phone into the pocket of his jeans, hoping that it would stay at least somewhat dry. Shoving it into the pocket of his ever-present red sweatshirt was asking for it fall out and get soaked, while shoving it in his bag would mean he wouldn’t be able to get to it quickly if Eto called again. So, it was the lesser of three evils, in this case; the closest to a compromise the panicked omega could think of, just then. Yanking up the hood for at least some minimal form of protection against the deluge, the Chinese teen took a deep breath and plunged back out into the downpour.

Eto _had_ to be okay – he didn’t know what he’d do if not.

* * *

Time was moving in slow motion for Eto, sights and sounds seeming far away and indistinct. (Well, more indistinct than usual, given her dual diagnosis of near- and farsightedness.) The smell of the streets, of one of Tokyo’s worse-off neighborhoods, hung heavy in the air; as ever, the rain exacerbated it. Wet, and moldy, and caked in misery. It wasn’t very dark, as the sun was only just beginning to set, but the thick cloud cover and pouring rain diminished her already poor sight to almost zero. The slick-slide of liquid told her that her hands were wet, but the scent of iron in the air told her that it wasn’t the rain drenching her skin. Or, at the very least, not _just_ the rain. After all, the rain was cold, and her hands were warm. Which, truthfully, was odd. She had thin skin and delicate bones; she was always cold, regardless of it she let it bother her or not, so why – ? The answer hit her hard enough to make her feel like throwing up.

A _body_.

She was trying to stop exsanguination, hands pressed to the chest as if she could prevent death.

Whose – ? Then sound slammed into her. People were running, screaming, blind like animals whipped into a stampede. _She_ was screaming, begging, crying –  “No, don't go, you can't leave, please, please don't, you said you'd always be here for me! Don't, please, why? I love you, why did you do that for me? Why do you love me enough to die, but not enough to stay?! Why am I never good enough for someone to stay?!” Sirens were getting closer, as she tried to staunch the bleeding of the body of the only person who had ever cared about her in this fucked-up, Gods-forsaken world. “Noro! You can't, can't go, you can’t leave, you promised!" She was hyperventilating, screeching, deaf even to the arrival of the one person she could think to call for help. “Noro! _PAPA, I LOVE YOU! DON'T LEAVE ME ALONE_ – !”

Eto continued shrieking even as Tatara grabbed her up around the waist and all but crushed her against his chest. Her sobs muffled for now, he booked it from the scene as quickly as he could. With any luck – Eto’s, of course; his was piss-poor on a good day – they hadn’t been seen or recognized. At nineteen, he was barely old enough to take care of Eto on his own, but he highly doubted that the legal system would have seen it that way. So, it was for the best if they could stay the ghosts that the law technically considered them. Any other outcome was… _undesirable_ at best. Drenched to the bone, and both now covered in a fair amount of blood, he rushed them home as quickly as he could. Brain locked in survival mode, Tatara couldn’t have told anyone just how they made it home, only that they did. The sound of the deadbolt sliding home was loud as the hammering of a coffin nail in the silence that Eto’s cries gave way to.

Maneuvering through the dark apartment with the skill and quiet of someone used to moving in the dark, he didn’t reach for the light switch when they made it to the bathroom. Instead, after shutting and locking the door behind them, the older omega reached for the small nightlight from memory alone. Shaped like an owl, it bathed the tiny room – hardly big enough for a shower stall, a toilet, and a sink – in amber half-light. All Tatara could think of, just then, was the fact that it had been a birthday gift for Eto from Noro. Afraid of the dark, though she would never have admitted it aloud, it was one of her favorite things in the whole wide world. Numbly, he realized that now she would have something else to have nightmares about. On auto pilot he gently got the shivering girl out of her clothes, before gathering her close to his chest again, though in a much gentler fashion. Securely shutting the shower door behind them, he settled on the floor and reached up to turn the water on.

Adjusting it from memory, though with more caution since Eto didn’t take immediate and drastic temperature differences well, Tatara reached for a washcloth and the vanilla-scented soap she preferred. (A small luxury; he and Noro shared the same bottle of 3-in-1 neutral-scented shampoo, conditioner, and soap. Though it did need to be said that even Eto’s vanilla-scented shampoo and conditioner were 2-in-1, as well.) She was a bit too old for this, on the whole, but after what had happened… Shoving that thought away, the teen worked at gently yet briskly cleaning the blood off of her. Once that was done and the suds had been washed away, he reached for the second bottle that was hers. And yet, even after Eto was entirely clean, even when the water started to run cold – he couldn’t make himself move. A tiny whine broke his paralysis, however. This was bullshit; he didn’t have _time_ for this crap.

Quickly turning off the water, he stood with her still cradled securely against his chest. Stepping out of the shower, Tatara grabbed a towel and set about drying Eto off. While she was still wrapped in the towel, he set her down on the floor. He had intended to open the door and reach across the pathetic excuse for a hallway to the pathetic excuse for a closet (that served as both a place to put their clothes and to store linens), and grab one of her nightgowns. A tiny, shaking hand fisted in the fabric of his sodden jeans made him pause, however. Turning back to face her, he knelt down to be more at eye level. For a moment, he thought about telling her he would be right back, but one look at her eyes told him that was a bad idea. Biting back a sigh, he picked her up again, maneuvering with her in his arms disquietingly easily. Had she always been this light? He could worry about that (and finding a job) later. He had other, more pressing things to focus on – like making sure Eto didn’t catch a cold.

Once she was dry and in her nightgown, the lanky Chinese boy reached back into the bathroom to turn off the nightlight. Grabbing a pair of his pajama pants, along with a pair of boxers and a shirt, he moved over to the far end of the tiny studio apartment. Setting up the futon the three of them had used as a bed with Eto laying claim to one of his arms and one side of his torso wasn’t exactly easy, but it didn’t feel nearly as frustrating as it probably should have. Settling her down and under the covers, on the side of the bed closest to the wall, he changed as quickly as he dared in the dark. Though he knew he should take off his binder as well, it was the only article of his clothing that wasn’t wet, and logic and rationality didn’t seem to be entirely registering just then. Fishing out his thankfully undamaged phone, the omega set his alarm for fifteen minutes earlier than usual. Getting into bed, body instinctively curling around Eto’s tiny frame, he unsurprisingly found her asleep.

"Sleep tight, brat," he murmured softly into the crown of her head, "you’re gonna need it."

Before passing out, he wondered if Yan and Fei felt like this when they'd become his "parents."

**Author's Note:**

> Rigor mortis is one of the recognizable signs of death, caused by chemical changes in the muscles post mortem, which cause the limbs of the corpse to stiffen.
> 
> Proof read and edited 1/2/19.


End file.
